This essay picks up on the invitation extended by the sessions on ‘MediaArcheology: Network(s)’ at FilmForum 2017 to engage, with some politicalurgency, in ‘an archaeological excavation of the post... Show moreThis essay picks up on the invitation extended by the sessions on ‘MediaArcheology: Network(s)’ at FilmForum 2017 to engage, with some politicalurgency, in ‘an archaeological excavation of the post-Fordist, post-industrial andglobal emergence of the Network(s).’ In a time and age in which the network, tospeak with Galloway and Thacker, ‘has emerged as a dominant form describingthe nature of control today, as well as resistance to it’1 such a historicizing moveseems all the more important, not just for the sake of historical depth, but also,in particular, in our attempts to re ne our understanding of the present-daysituation. Taking up their invitation and yet giving it a somewhat different twist,in this paper, I will appraise a genealogy of what could be seen as the inverse ofthe network, or the idea of networked connectivity, which, I argue, in the lastdecade has manifested itself most clearly in the desire to disconnect. Drawing alink between the current preoccupation with digital detoxing and anti-televisionmovement of the 1980s onwards, I will re ect on the relevance of doing such ahistoricizing comparative analysis. Show less
